'Walking Dead' character returns in mid-season premiere

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In a surprise twist in last night's Walking Dead mid-season premiere, Sarah Wayne Callies returned for a brief cameo as Lori Grimes.

The episode titled 'The Suicide King', which aired in the US on AMC last night (February 10), featured an appearance from Lori in a wedding dress. However, it wasn't a shock return for the character who was killed off earlier in the season; she was merely part of her husband Rick's (Andrew Lincoln) latest hallucination.

Sarah Wayne Callies revealed that initially there had been talks about her returning as a zombie in the hallucination, but said that she was against the idea of zombies talking on the show.

"I think the thought behind the wedding dress is, if he's going to hallucinate his wife, he's going to picture her the day he remembers her being the happiest. His mind is going to cast about for the most idealized version of Lori," she told EW.

"And in a way, what is true is that I have never played Lori Grimes again after that death scene. Because everything I'm doing now - from the phone call to this wraith like appearance - I'm not playing Lori anymore.

"I'm playing Rick. And that was an interesting switch, to realize it's not about, 'Who is Lori?' It's about, 'Who does Rick's diseased mind need Lori to be right now?' So Andy and I did a lot of talking about that kind of thing because it's not about, 'Let me come with my ideas as an actor'. It's more about, 'Andy, tell me what to do because this is your character I'm playing'."

She also confessed that it was tough to return to the show's set after leaving earlier in the season, claiming that it was emotionally "complicated" and describing herself as an "unsettling" reminder of the show's former era.

"There's a lot of big emotions that are involved with leaving a show, and coming back can be complicated," she said.

"Because in some ways you've healed those little holes in your heart. And you come back and they kind of start to open back up."

The Walking Dead returns on Friday (February 15) at 10pm on FOX in the UK. It continues on Sunday nights in the US on AMC.